The field of the invention is braking assemblies for wheel supported devices, such as an inline skate. Although there are many patents on brakes for inline skates which operate to slow the rotation of one or more wheels of the inline skate, the most popular way of stopping an inline skate comprises a brake pad positioned at the back of the inline skate which is dragged against the ground by tipping the skate back so that the pad contacts the surface on which the skater is skating.
One skate brake design is shown in U.S. Pat. No. 5,997,015 assigned to one of the inventors of the present patent and the disclosure of this patent is hereby incorporated by reference herein. This brake is activated by the rearward pivoting of a collar or horseshoe shaped member 15 which moves a pivoted brake member 22 into contact with two rotating brake disks supported by two of the wheels of the inline skate.
Although the design of U.S. Pat. No. 5,997,015 is effective, it is limited in brake pad surface contact area and in heat dissipation.
It is an object of the present invention to provide a brake assembly for inline skates and other wheel supported devices which has a relatively large braking surface and the ability to dissipate the heat generated by the braking action.
The present invention is for a brake assembly for applying a braking force to one or more wheels of a wheel supported device. The wheel supported device has a wheel frame which in turn, supports a plurality of wheels on a plurality of axles held by the wheel frame. The assembly has a rotating brake member held by at least one of the plurality of wheels on at least one side thereof. The rotating brake member has an outwardly facing braking surface which rotates with the wheel. A fixed brake member is held so that it does not turn with the wheels. The fixed brake member has an inwardly facing friction surface positioned adjacent at least a portion of the outwardly facing braking surface of the rotating brake member. Means are provided for controllably bending the fixed brake member toward the rotating brake member so that the outwardly facing braking surface of the rotating brake member contacts the inwardly facing friction surface of the fixed brake member, thereby applying a braking force on the wheel. Preferably, the brake member is moved by contact with the cam surface on the outer periphery of the fixed brake member. This cam surface is contacted by a brake activation arm pivotally or otherwise held by the frame between an inner surface of the frame and the fixed brake member. The cam surfaces can be a 45xc2x0 chamfer and the brake activating arm is positioned between the fixed brake member and the inner surface of the frame. The fixed brake member is preferably disk shaped and held by the frame by a non-circular protrusion, such as a hexagonal protrusion, which fits into a shaped opening in the frame. When the axle is tightened in the frame, the fixed brake member is tightened between the frame and the center area of the wheel bearing assembly, so that the center part of the fixed brake member does not move inwardly or outwardly, but instead, the braking action is caused by a bending of the fixed brake member. The fixed brake member may have a plurality of slits to divide the fixed brake member into a number of segments. The brake actuating arm can move a single segment. When the single segment becomes worn, the fixed brake member can be loosened and turned so that an adjacent segment contacts the movable brake member supported by the wheel. There can be brake pads on both sides of one, two or all wheels, although the assembly is workable with as little as one side of one wheel being provided with a brake assembly.